


Photo Wall

by orphan_account



Category: Hockey RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One relationship told through a wall of photos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photo Wall

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written in 2006, when I was still a HS-er I do believe. I found it in my notes today. It made me laugh when I loaded it, the lack of a Dany Heatley/Ilya Kovalchuk tag showing you how much time has changed. Neither are relevant or even around now days, neither are the Thrashers. Time's do change. 
> 
> // // denotes Russian.

Ilya has dreams on nights like this when the dark is onyx like the ring he wears.

Dany has nightmares on nights like this, when the dark is onyx like the ring he wears.

Ilya’s dreams sometimes become nightmares and he wakes panicked, hands searching for his fiancé who’s nearly 2000 kilometers away. 

He dreams that he arrived before anyone else did, rushing to the tangled mess of metal, in the dead silence of the late night crash. He stumbles through the half dark, his headlights illuminating the street in a ghostly fog as he reaches the car; fingers fumbling over the buttons on his phone. 911. Three numbers never seemed to take a long as they did then; reaching the side where his boyfriend is as the operator’s voice comes down the line. Around to Dan while he speaks, trying not to sob, as he tells the lady on the line, his friend isn’t responding. Stumbling back to Dany, who’s still breathing, glassy eyes following him, quiet moans of pain. Silence again, as he drops the phone, wrapping his hand in his lover’s, brushing his hair from his eyes, blood covering his face.

Ilya can hear Dany’s breath becoming shallow, quieter yet louder in the Russian’s ears. 

“I.. .. love……. yo… u.”

The hand wrapped in Ilya’s shakes slightly, and the only other sound in the onyx night, Dany’s breath, softens, leaving Ilya alone. He doesn’t cry, raising his other hand and sliding his boyfriend’s lifeless eyes closed, giving him peace.

That’s where they find him in the dream, minutes later though it seems like hours, smeared in blood, clutching his dead lover’s hand, crying silently, face pressed against the crushed metal of the car. The worst part is when he’s still sitting next to the car and the people take them out, and Ilya loses it, breaking down and almost screaming his cries in Russian but no one knows what he’s saying. Someone tries to console him, steer him away, but they don’t understand that a boy who’s become a man has just had his heart torn out. 

He swears he can see the bag that hold his lover move as it’s taken towards the ambulance, and he loses it again, throwing himself forward, killing himself slowly in Russian as a paramedic grabs him and sedates him. 

The needle pierces the skin and Ilya wakes up in a cold sweat to Dany’s ring tone (he’s calling). His arm hurts.

He talks to his lover as he climbs out of bed, the dark suffocating him as he plays with his ring, wandering down the hallway, looking at the wall of memories. His favourite photo is four from bathroom door, underneath an on-ice shot of Dany and above one of Ilya. 

Ilya had flown in to continue contract negotiations. He’d said he wouldn’t play in Atlanta without Dany, media sources quoting this, but he was sure he could renege on these words due to the situation. After his teammates in Russia had referred to his boyfriend as a killer, he knew he had to leave.

Dany won his first game while Ilya was there, and Ilya wished he could be a part of it too.

Dany stole him away from Spezza and pulled him back to the dressing room and a sign that spread across all the players. A team Ilya didn’t know helped Dany with what was his most important question.

It took a few seconds for Ilya’s brain to comprehend what he was being asked, the fact his boyfriend of nearly four years was kneeling before him, doing more for his understanding than the huge banner.

It was the second time Ilya remembers crying because he was happy. Not at the Olympics. Not on his draft day. None of his accomplishments in his chosen sport meant anything compared to this.

That day, Dany asked him to marry him.

The photo three to the right and two up is the only other day he’s cried from happiness. 

It’s Dany (no one would expect less), curls sticking out of his helmet, awkward gap toothed smile over his shoulder, and there in the background the sign “We’ve our Heater back”. It’s his first game back after the accident.

That’s all it’s referred to now. The accident. The event that’ll follow them for the rest of their lives. People will always question what kind of players they both would have become if it hadn’t happen? People will always question Dany’s emotional stability (how would you be?).

The day he broke down, Ilya flew to Boston in the early hours, knowing where his loyalties lay at that time. A midnight message to a coach that knew where he had to be and he was gone, bag packed, promising to return for the next game day.

He’d phoned his fiancé from the other side of the door, as not to wake Dany’s sleeping room mate, and moments later the door opened, and Dany was in his arms, clinging to him as if the world was collapsing. For Dany, it was.

Ushering the sobbing mess of short curls back into the room, Ilya dumped his bag on the bed, stealing blankets and pillows from the bed and without stopping, led Dany to the bathroom as his room mate stirred. The bathtub was, luckily, one of the large triangular almost spa baths some hotels have. It was big enough for one hockey player but fitting two proved to be difficult. Ilya didn’t care as he, one handed; (the other still wrapped around his sobbing lover) threw the blanket across it and crawled in, pulling his boyfriend in after him. The pillows propped him up as Dany lay half on him, face buried in the younger man’s chest. 

Quietly, as with many times before, Ilya soothed away Dany’s nightmares, reassuring him it would be all right, calming him with words of Russian Dany didn’t understand, but in times like that you don’t need to understand to know the meaning. 

It was 5 am when Ilya had arrived and within 20 minutes of his being there, Dany was sound asleep on him, exhausted, the sleepless nights of torment having taken their toll on his body. Every time the older Canadian’s face crinkled in unpleasant dream, Ilya was there to soothe it away, calming him even in sleep.

The morning call came at 8 am, waking Ilya as Peter came into the room, mouth opening to laugh but silenced by Ilya’s fierce expression. 

The exchange was whispered, Dany’s room mate soon realizing what had gone on during his sleep that night. 

“He’ll be good for the game. Just nothing sooner.”

Peter nodded, biting his lip, unsure how this would go over with team management but realizing it had to be done.

“I’ll look after him.”

Peter once again nodded, quietly brushing his teeth before disappearing back into the room and moments later out the door, locking it behind him.

Stroking his fiancé’s hair, Ilya whispered in his ear, gently shaking him awake. 

“Let’s get you to bed, Danya.”

Somehow Ilya got him out of the tub, across the room and into his bed, shutting the curtains to block out the light and sitting back on its edge, still dressed in the jeans and shirt he’d arrived in the day before. Dany was asleep by the time Ilya stripped down and crawled in beside him, wrapping an arm over the other forward, and joining him in sleep, a place where together they couldn’t be touched.

Two photos to the left of that one is Ilya, Dany and two older couples, all smiling warmly, arms around each other. In the background behind them is a Christmas tree, decorated with tinsel and baubles in a mish mash of colour and cheer. The most prominent decoration is a large silver bauble bearing the Thrashers crest and it makes Ilya smile.

It’s Christmastime 2003, and the third time Ilya had made the fleeting trip home with Dany to spend Christmas time with his parents in Calgary. This time, they took Ilya’s parents with them. 

Getting off the plane in Calgary, Ilya had wanted nothing more to cling to his boyfriend’s hand, the fear that their parents wouldn’t like each other plaguing him. Dany was feeling much the same but doing a far better job of concealing it. 

They shouldn’t have been worried though, not even a slight language barrier could keep the Kovalchuks (Ilya a slight exception to this) from talking when they found someone who they could associate with. Two mothers, both having raised extremely talented hockey players, could always find something to talk about, whether comparisons to Canada and Russia, Super league to College, it seemed the house was, for that two day break, truly alive.

All these people were Ilya’s family and he was never going to give it up.

The photo underneath it sandwiched between one of Dany on ice for the Thrashers and one of Ilya in his first team Russia uniform is one of them together, sitting on the balcony of Ilya’s family apartment. After their rookie season, Ilya had gone home to Russia to visit his family, and to work up the courage to tell them about Dany. Of course Dany had decided he’d like to come too.

Ilya could have told them about his sexuality over the phone while thousands of miles away in Atlanta, the rejection he was preparing himself for maybe softened by the distance. If he wasn’t home, he wouldn’t have to leave. However, being Ilya, he always took the Kovalchuk approach, straightforward with utmost dignity so flew home to face, as Dany had put it before having to explain and eventually giving up, the Spanish inquisition.

They’d been sitting around the table talking after dinner, Ilya translating bits back and forth between his parents and Dany, his parents’ English, while good, still limited; when Ilya decided it was now or never. He got up out of his seat and motioned for Dany to follow him out of the room. There in the hall, they’d kissed briefly and Dany whispered reassurance before slowly following him back, standing behind him against the wall as he nervously faced his parents.

Dany could always tell when Ilya was uncomfortable. The Russian had a habit of scuffing his foot against the floor and looking downwards and Dany normally found it charming. At the moment though it had the effect of making Dany want to scoop his boyfriend up and take him off somewhere were he wouldn’t be hurt.

_//Mama. Papa. I have something to tell you.//_

They both looked up from the table, fixing their eyes (deep brown just like Ilya’s) to him, his mother nodding for him to continue.

Dany didn’t know what was said next, his Russian very limited, but Ilya had later told him.

_//Dany’s not my friend. He’s my boyfriend….//_

His parents’ eyes widened slightly as Ilya breathed deeply, squeezing his eyes shut before opening them, finally admitting who he was to the people he cared about the most.

_//I’m gay.//_

Gay. That was a word Dany knew. Ilya had told them the truth.

He could only watch, speechless, as Ilya’s mother dissolved into tears before them and his father rose from the table, striding across the kitchen towards him.

Not towards Ilya. Towards Dany.

Seconds later, Ilya was between the pair, arms raised defensively, pleading in Russian, as Dany stood there wide eyed, confused by this language he did not understand.

_//Please, no. Don’t hurt him. It’s not his fault. He didn’t do anything. It’s my fault.//_

Ilya’s father stopped, gaze turning to his son and softening, realizing what the young man was thinking. 

_//You think so little of me that I would hate you for this? Hurt you or him? Never.//_

Shaking his head, he hugged his son, muttering in Russian before turning to hug Dany, who still stood wide eyed back against the kitchen wall.

Ilya had rushed away from his father by now, crouching next to his mother, arm around her, the pair murmuring in Russian as her crying quieted. Dany never knew what words were passed between the two, and he’ll never ask, but he knows it comforted them both. That was all he wanted.

There in the kitchen of Ilya’s childhood home, with its peeling lino and chipped tiles (Ilya had given them money to renovate but for some reason they hadn’t got around to it, Ilya suspected his mother’s doing) with the memories of winters spent in front of fires defrosting after hockey on the pond and mama’s home cooked food, Ilya kissed Dany, passionately, madly and finally, for a moment, they were both whole.

After his latest game, a reporter noted the ring Ilya slid back on his finger, the moment he took his gloves off and asked him what it meant if anything. Ilya grinned, and shook his head.

_//It means everything//_

The confused reporter could only blink and shake his head, leaving Ilya to get dressed. Sometimes there are just stories that don’t need to be shared to be special.

Ilya has nightmares on nights like this when the dark is onyx like the ring he wears, but every time he stumbles out of his room to the hallway, he is drawn to the photos that line it.

They show the times he’ll always remember, the days where everything was right.

Dany has nightmares on nights like these, when the dark is onyx like the ring he wears, but rolling over, he sees the photo on his nightstand and is comforted. 

It is these moments they live for, the calm between the storms, because they both know, in one moment, it might be picture perfect again.

These are the moments worth fighting for.


End file.
